Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Tiger is a Dad: Varsity Dad Alert! Elin gave birth to daughter Sam Alexis Woods overnight. No WONDER Tiger was distracted at the Open on Sunday.

Hot Blogger Bracket, Round 4: I'm up against Jon Pyle of Pyle of List, the toughest matchup yet. Click here to vote (Yes, for me: Because self-promotion is HOT!)

MLB: Start snitchin'! Jason Giambi is going to TALK. To George Mitchell, according to a report in today's NY Daily News. Then, presumably, to anyone who will hear his sob story about ratting out his fellow players -- and perhaps including a bit of a hedge, insisting that he had no other choice and wanted to put it behind him...yada yada yada...naming names?

"The Kobe Video Guys": I love this amateur video situation, where a fan is trying to sell the footage of Kobe ripping the Lakers as recently as late last month.

In this era of YouTube, it's refreshing to see someone trying to make money from amateur footage. It'll be available in complete form online – free – soon enough.

48 comments:

As an O's fan, I dont see why Girardi would want to manage the O's. Kruk said it on Baseball Tonight, the O's job is probably the least attractive job in the majors. Girardi will have much better offers than working for Angelos.

know people who worked for the Angelos law firm and they all hate him too. Locals know that Angelos tried to take a billion dollars from Maryland's tobacco settlement saying he earned it with a few hours of legal work. What BS.

I know you are technically allowed to discuss your fantasy team but this just has to be mentioned. In the beginning of the season everyone tells me how my outfield is the cornerstone of my team because I have Andruw Jones and Jermaine Dye and they are awesome and I also have Curtis Granderson who is OK.(year: .avg/.obp/.slg hr/rbi)Andruw Jones:2006: .262/.363/.531 41/1292007: .205/.303/.394 11/42Jermaine Dye:2006: .315/.385/.622 44/1202007: .232/.291/.429 11/34Curtis Granderson:2006: .260/.335/.438 19/682007: .294/.349/.574 9/36

And Granderson has already equaled him stolen base total from last year. So I guess things don't always turn out the way you expect.

Granderson (who is on my fantasy team anyway) has turned into my favorite non-Oriole. I regularly read his ESPN blog and he just seems like a nice guy who has his head on straight. He seems to appreciate how good he has it and wants to give something back. He is the exact opposite of Pacman Jones.

KG to the Celtics would be a great trade as long as you do not include Jefferson in that trade. If the Celtics have KG, Jefferson and Pierce in the front court it makes them one of the best team in the east. Just Pierce and KG does not make them that much better then they currently are. KG is what Jefferson will be in another year or 2.

Congrats to Tiger for joining our ranks- Dad that is. (Though he's still got 2 to go before he catches me).

MLB Stud: Jason Schmidt- 2nd stint on DL.

Girardi would be smart to not take the Orioles gig- Angelos is the biggest f***up in MLB.

Dan, I tried the KG trade in the 4-letter network's Trade Machine and it didn't work. Too much wrapped in KG's salary. Hmmmm.

The 5 game suspension for Lee and Young is simply to ensure Young misses a start... anything less than 5 games doesn't really penalize a pitcher. Why don't they just switch pitcher's suspensions to "starts" rather than games? It's not like you don't know when a guy's turn comes up in the rotation.

As a Miami of Ohio graduate, I fell in love with the football tradition. In college, I was walking through Millet Hall when I randomly bumped into Coach Hoeppner. As he was passing by, I said, "Great season so far Coach." He turned around and approached me and said thank you. We talked for 5 minutes about my studies and what I loved most about Miami football. I will never forget how awesome I felt that a football coach at a major university would take time out of his busy day DURING football season just to talk to a peon of a senior. RIP Coach Hep.

Todd Jones needs to be on the dud list. Came in last night in the 9th with a 4 run lead, and promptly gave up 5 consecutive hits and 3 runs to almost blow a 4 run 9th inning lead. That guy is going to end up costing the Tigers a chance to win the World Series.

Not sure if the Yankees want to go with Girardi or Mattingly as the successor to Torre. My guess is that while former teammates of Girardi like Jeter, Mariano, Pettite, and Posada are still there, that they probably won't have Girardi.

But yeah, like Mike was saying, who in the hell would want the O's job right now?

I've always thought they don't penalize starting pitchers enough with suspensions. All a 5 game suspension means is that Young takes an extra day off in between starts. He is basically suspended for nothing. The minimum suspension that a starting pitcher should recieve is 9 games, thus ensuring that they miss 1 start.

I doubt Angelos would fire Mazzone and eat the last year of that contract because I believe Mazzone is signed thru 2008. But whoever the permanent manager is, he may want to choose his own pitching coach. That's the only scenario I would see Mazzone being let go. But the new manager would have a tough time convincing Angelos.

A walk-off triple? That's awesome. Think about it - the batter has to hit the ball so that it's a stand-up triple and he has to reach third before the runner scores from first. Somebody get Jayson Stark on this - has this ever happened before?

Considering it's a mid-season replacement, I can't see any manager coming in and then getting to name his own pitching coach this year. Plus, Mazzone is generally regarded as the best [or at worst one of the best] pitching coaches in baseball. I can't imagine there'd be any manager who would come in and say, "no, I don't want Mazzone."

As per Mattlingly's handling of the media, I'd be curious to know more about that. Certainly NYC is a tough place to be if you can't handle the media, and if there's something that even an avid Yankee hater has to respect about Torre, it's his unparalleled ability to deflect attention away from his players in the media. For the most part, he's been excellent in that.

We also know that Girardi didn't handle criticism/advice from the owner well in Florida, so I wonder how he'd handle it coming from [even a sedated] Steinbrenner.

If the Yankees make the playoffs this year though, I think it's completely up to Torre as to whether or not he wants to stay. If they don't, then I don't see any way he's back.

I'm reading interviews with Perlozzo and the poor guy really believed he could have turned the O's around. He had no chance. Turning around the O's would be like bailing water from the Titanic AFTER it hit the iceberg!

Growing up and still living in Redhawk country, I am sad to hear of Coach Hoeppner's passing. He was a great coach at a school with a long history of great coaches and imo brought the football program back from relative obscurity. Such a shame for him to leave so much unfinished at IU, it really looked like he was going to turn that program around. Condolences to his family, team, and former players. He will truly be missed.

Here's some positive baseball news. From reading Rob Neyer's chat: Rick Ankiel recently had a 3 HR game and is slugging .606 on the season with a call up coming soon as an OF.

I'm pretty happy for the guy. He looked like an ace pitcher at one point and then it looked like his career was over. I cant think of any pitcher that salvaged his career by becoming a hitter. There are a few going the other way, but even they are rare.

I didnt count Ruth since he played OF on days he didn't pitch. But technically you're right. I was thinking of failed pitchers (either injury or ineffectiveness) who then tried to become a hitter and succeeded. I really cant think of one.

OUTSTANDING interview with HR. Not just he fact that he was able to man-up and speak to someone in an open forum like Deadspin, but the fact that he even knew what Deadspin was... that's what impressed me.

@ cmfost:"KG to the Celtics would be a great trade as long as you do not include Jefferson in that trade. "

Absolutely no way in hell Minnesota accepts a deal for KG to Boston without getting Big Al back. To move KG, it would take Al, The #5, Ratliff's contract, and probably Gerald Green or Telfair with next year's #2. No other way around that.

Even Kevin McHale isn't that stupid.

Now... the Suns might be willing to move Shawn Marion to Boston for Green & the #5 overall, presuming they can make salaries matchup. They would be more inclined not to take on Jefferson, since he'll be up for a contract soon and they are already nearing salary cap hell (note the fact that Marion is openly available).

Yeah, the Hot Blogger thing needs to go. Also the Varsity Dad promotion EVERY time someone famous has a kid is getting old fast. We get it: you have a blog that no one reads. If we haven't visited it yet, we aren't going to. No need to keep linking to it in the daily post.

There have been many fielders turned pitcher because if they see that the guy has a good arm they ask him to throw off a mound.

This is happening for a kid who was just drafted last week. He was a catcher and was known for his rocket throws to 2nd base. So in a workout a scout asked him to throw off a mound. Turns out he could throw 93 mph.

there's no question that perlozzo needed to go. can't argue that one - too many dumb calls this season. but, realistiacally, he wasn't exactly given much to work with, was he? he lost 3/5 of his starting rotation (benson, loewen, then penn). and with the young arms in the rotation now (burres, guthrie) and the old arms (trachsel), these pitchers can't go 7-8-9 innings every night. the bullpen was just fine at the start of the season, before they got overworked and worn down.

and let's not forget that this team does NOT have a power hitter. none at all. sure, perlozzo was a douche for continuing to start jay gibbons, but really, it's not like freddie bynum is gonna hit 38 homers.

now, that being said, giradi to the o's is a TERRIBLE move. not for girardi - andy macphail was brought in to actually make, you know, smart moves. no, girardi isn't a good fit because his whole thing is "BLAH BLAH BLAH PLAY HARD BLAH BLAH BLAH DO BETTER OR I'LL SIT YOU BLAH BLAH BLAH." that may have worked in florida, where the marlins had something like 85% of their team as rookies, but it just won't fly in baltimore. tejada will say fuck you, mora will say fuck you, bedard (!) will say fuck you, and the o's will finish in fifth.

really, having been an o's fan all my life, i'm firmly convinced that this team has no future with angelos as an owner.

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DanShanoff.com is a sports-blog spin-off of my long-time ESPN.com column, "The Daily Quickie." Anchored by an early-morning post of must-know topics, the blog is updated frequently throughout the day with new posts and user comments.